And I Die With Every Breath
by believeindreamers
Summary: This is a one-shot ficlet about Van Helsing after his return to Rome, VH's POV. It's a bit depressing, a bit thought-provoking, and works best if you have some angsty music playing in the background.


**A/N:** As I've had my OC-ness pointed out to me (and admitted it was true) I've attempted to work a little more genuine character into this along with the depression. Thanks to Trinity Infinity, I've decided to repost this, with a few alterations that were suggested along with the review. Trinity, I made the attempt, but it's still a bit . . . uncharacteristically angsty. But I tried!

Read and review? Please? Don't make me beg . . . . 'cause I will . . . . .

**Disclaimer: **No, I don't own anything. Unfortunately.

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_" Evil__ may have created it, maybe left its mark on it, but evil does not _rule_ it. And so I cannot kill it." _

I said those words a thousand years ago, it seems, in a time of trouble. Now, there is little that troubles me – for the Church who owns my soul will not let my body die. And it is only a body now, more corpse than living flesh . . . the spirit fled, beaten, vanquished . . . torn from the Light that gave it birth and banished to endless Darkness. For I killed her, snapped her neck with the paws of a werewolf, and felt her heart cease its beat even as my mind won its battle over the wolf's consciousness. And in doing so, I damned myself to this half-life. My heart beats still, but it is without purpose, without the drive that made me legendary. I saved Frankenstein's monster, that is true, and won my war with evil with minimal casualties. But I took her life, broke that beautiful, innocent girl with my own bare hands, and broke my own heart in an instant.

It was Carl that saved me . . . without him, I think I would have lain down beside her and died that night without a mark on me. Shock, I suppose. I think it might have been better if I had ripped out her throat, left myself with tangible proof of the beast I had become upon her . . . to lay her down on her funeral pyre with only the palest of bruises at her throat where my paws rested, looking for all the world as if she slept, was almost more than I could bear.

I see, now, that I should have let Count Dracula kill us both; lacking that, that I should have killed myself before my mind was caught inside the wolf's hatred for humans. I knew my duty, ordained by God and man, to protect the innocent . . . to kill the monsters. But it's harder, by far, to obey that heavenly directive when the monster . . . . is yourself.

I believed in Anna, believed that her love would be enough to save me – or that mine would save her from me, if it came to that. In its killing frenzy, the wolf that ruled me recognized no pack, no mate, and later left me alone to weep for what I had done. Or, shall I say, almost alone. For the wolf dwells inside me still, no matter what Carl tells me. I feel it, not murderous now, but grieving as only a canine can, with a howl so lonely that I think it could move even God to tears.

I wanted to die . . . I wish it still. But the Vatican's doctors recognized the marks, if not the point behind them . . . . knew them for the self-inflicted wounds they were, no matter how convincing an excuse I gave them. And so they no longer leave me alone, and remind me constantly that suicide is, by the very doctrine I used to live by, a sin sure to send one straight to purgatory. Used to live by, I say it past tense, because for all practical purposes I no longer live, and I've yet to decide what road I die by.

But for all my pain they need not worry so much that I will die on them before they've finished with me. The scars that score my hands and arms are already fading, the wounds that caused them shallow, the intent only to hurt, not to kill. I recognize the sacrifice Anna Valerious chose to make, and would not undermine her decision to save me so callously. She is at peace, with the brother she cherished and the father she worshiped . . . . I grieve, now, not as much for her as for me, and for a future I had almost let myself believe was possible. Had she lived, I don't doubt that she would have stayed with me. But I know, too, that in time she would have ceased to see the man behind the killer, and seen no more than what others do. And who would wish to chain themselves to a man whose God ordained duty is to kill?

And so I am not entirely certain why the memory of her tugs at me. I have seen many, many people die. They go about it differently, some with curses, some with prayer, but they die just the same. And when the body lies six feet under in the unforgiving earth, only God can remember the difference between the holy and the hellish. But I loved her, as much as a man like me is capable, and without her my world lacks the color and flavour that make life worth living. And so I shall bide my time.

It will not happen tonight, or tomorrow, but someday soon even Rome will tire of me. They keep me here for a purpose . . . to kill those creatures they cannot. One day they will send me out again on the trail of some mysterious killer . . . and I will do my duty, and try to forget. Perhaps someday I _will _forget her, and become again the incredible hunter of evil I once was. But I will forever remember the moment when the monster was me, and all the will I had was not enough to force it back. I remember the look in Carl's eyes when I caught his wrist, silver stake clenched in his fist, and I know how it feels to be seen as something less than human. I know, and am not certain that I will not balk the next time I ready myself to deal the killing blow. Know, too, that if I do it may be the last choice I ever make, and it will be my body they ship back to a quiet burial, and not my victim's.

Tonight I fall to my knees in prayer, and I do not pray, as most do, for forgiveness and prosperity, for peace and purpose. I pray only that the nightmares stop, that God will find me worthy of heaven, so I can see her again and beg her forgiveness in person. Perhaps that will absolve my guilt.

Are you allowed to feel guilty in heaven? Or is that reserved for Hell?


End file.
